Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 11, 2023

Psyche: Everything you need to know about NASA's mission to a huge metallic asteroid

On Friday (Oct. 13) NASA's Psyche spacecraft blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. In 2029, after traveling 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers), the spacecraft will arrive at the far side of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where the asteroid...

Oct 12, 2023

Ammonia leak on Russian section of International Space Station 'has now ceased,' but astronauts remain cautious

On Wednesday (Oct. 11), a coolant leak on a Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS) appears to have stopped two days after being discovered, NASA wrote in a blog post. Space station astronauts were never in any danger due to the ammonia leak that began on Monday (Oct....

Oct 13, 2023

Gaia spacecraft reveals 'goldmine' of over 500,000 undiscovered stars

The Gaia mission has revealed a goldmine of new information on cosmic objects as it continues to create the most comprehensive stellar catalog ever compiled. The new release, known as Gaia's focused product release (FPR), contains over half a million new faint stars, more than 380 new gravitationally lensed quasars...

Oct 24, 2023

Falling metal space junk is changing Earth's upper atmosphere in ways we don't fully understand

The sky is littered with metal pollution from bits of space junk that burn up as they reenter the atmosphere, a new study reveals. This unexpected level of contamination, which will likely rise sharply in the coming decades, could change our planet's atmosphere in ways we still don't fully understand,...

Oct 29, 2023

Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem

In science fiction films, nothing raises tension quite like the good guys' spaceship getting caught in an invisible tractor beam that allows the baddies to slowly reel them in. But what was once only a sci-fi staple could soon become a reality. Scientists are developing a real-life tractor beam, dubbed...

Nov 6, 2023

China successfully grows lettuce and tomatoes aboard Tiangong space station

China's Shenzhou 16 astronauts have been growing vegetables aboard the Tiangong space station, as part of plans for future deep space exploration. Mission commander Jing Haipeng and rookie astros Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao have been aboard Tiangong since late May and are due to return to Earth on Oct....

Nov 7, 2023

'The forbidden space meal': What happens if you need to be a cannibal on Mars?

Humans are forever venturing deep into the unknown, pushing the boundaries of our physical limits in pursuit of adventure. The next frontier for humanity is space — but just like exploring on Earth, not all expeditions go to plan. And when something does go wrong, we are faced with the...

Nov 10, 2023

James Webb telescope uncovers mysterious Milky Way 'twin' in the early universe

Astronomers have discovered the most distant example of a galaxy in the universe that looks like our home galaxy, the Milky Way. When the universe was just two billion years old, the newfound spiral galaxy, ceers-2112, appears to have featured a bar of stars and gas cutting across its heart,...

Nov 11, 2023

Space photo of the week: James Webb telescope finds a secret at the Crab Nebula's heart

What it is: The highest-resolution image of the Crab Nebula (M1) ever taken Where it is: 6,500 light-years away, in the constellation Taurus When it was taken: October 2023 Why it's so special: This new infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows one of the night sky's...

Nov 14, 2023

NASA and Japan to launch world's 1st wooden satellite as soon as 2024. Why?

NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are planning to launch the world's first wooden satellite into space in a bid to make spaceflight more sustainable. LignoSat, a coffee mug-size satellite made from magnolia wood, is set to launch into Earth's orbit by summer 2024, according to the space...

Nov 16, 2023

Astronauts accidentally dropped a tool bag on a spacewalk, and you can see it with binoculars

Some astronomy targets are less celestial in nature than others. Joining stars, planets, nebulas, and galaxies as a target for skywatchers is now a surprisingly bright tool bag floating through the space around Earth. The bag of tools gave NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara the slip on Nov....

Nov 17, 2023

How to watch SpaceX's Starship launch for 2nd time ever on Saturday, Nov. 18

SpaceX plans to launch its Starship vehicle for the second time ever on Saturday (Nov. 18), and you can watch the historic liftoff live. SpaceX aims to launch Starship, a next-generation system designed to take people and payloads to deep space, during a 20-minute window that opens at 8 a.m....

Nov 20, 2023

Watch SpaceX Starship megarocket explode in 'rapid unscheduled disassembly'

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — SpaceX's giant Starship has met another explosive end. SpaceX's next-generation megarocket — the largest ever built — launched on its second-ever test flight on Saturday (Nov. 18), a highly anticipated jaunt that took the giant vehicle to space for the first time, but it didn't...

Nov 23, 2023

Earth receives laser-beam message from 10 million miles away in new NASA experiment

A NASA laser just fired successfully in a deep-space test. On Nov. 14, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from an instrument that launched with the Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from Earth and heading toward a mysterious metal asteroid. (The...

Nov 28, 2023

SpaceX rockets keep tearing blood-red 'atmospheric holes' in the sky, and scientists are concerned

De-orbiting SpaceX rockets are smashing temporary holes in the upper atmosphere, creating bright blobs of light in the sky. Now, scientists have warned that these SpaceX auroras, which look like glowing red orbs of light, could be causing unrecognized problems — though they are not a threat to the environment...